A Mad Love, Charlotte Mary Brame [read this if txt] 📗

content."

"She will do it if I advise it," said Lady Cambrey. "She is very docile."

"We can decide on our plans of action when we meet there," said the countess. "The chief thing is to keep all idea of 'our ideas' from my son. Instead of drawing his attention to Lady Marion, we must seem to avoid bringing them together. I understand men. The first result of that will be an intense anxiety on his part to see her. Do you understand?"

"Quite," said Lady Cambrey. "It is really a pleasure to meet some one who understands human nature as you do, Lady Lanswell."

The countess smiled graciously at the compliment, feeling as though it were well deserved.

So it was arranged, and Lady Cambrey's part of the plot was very easy. She had but to suggest to her niece that she should spend the winter in Rome and she would at once fall in with her wish.

Lady Lanswell had settled in her own mind the plan of the whole campaign. She intended to go to Berlin, there to seek a reconciliation with her son, and persuade him to go to Rome with them. She managed it all so well, saying nothing at first of their intended journey, but making herself very agreeable to her son. She brought to him all the flattering things said of them. She studied every little whim, wish, or caprice. She put him on a pedestal and made an idol of him. She was all that was gay, amiable, pleasant and kind. She made herself not only his friend and companion, but everything else in the world to him. She was gay, amiable, gracious, witty. With her still beautiful face and fine figure, she made herself so attractive and charming that Lord Chandos was soon entirely under her influence.

How many mothers might have taken a hint for the management of their sons from her. She found no fault with cigars or latch-keys. She was the essence of all that was kind, yet, at the same time, she was so animated, so bright, so witty, that the time spent with her passed quickly as a dream. Lord Chandos did not even like to think of parting from her; and then, when she was most kind and most attentive to him, she mentioned Rome.

"We are going to Rome, Lance, for the winter," said the countess to her son.

He looked up from the paper he was reading in blank amazement.

"To Rome, mother? Why, what is taking you there?"

"I find there will be some very nice English people there," she said; "I am tired of Paris; it is one eternal glare; I long for the mysterious quiet and dreamy silence of Rome. It will be a pleasant change. I really like a nice circle of English people out of England."

That was the beginning. She was too wise and diplomatic to ask him to go with them. She contented herself by speaking before him of the gayeties they expected, the pleasures they anticipated; then, one day, as they were discussing their plans, she turned to him and said:

"Lance, what do you intend doing this winter? Are you going back to England to think over the fogs?"

"I am not quite sure," he said; and then he wondered why she said nothing about going to Rome with them. At last, when she saw the time had come, she said, carelessly:

"Lance, if you do not care about returning to England, come with us to Rome."

"I shall be delighted."

He looked up with an air of relief. After all, he could not see Leone until summer: why return to England and melancholy? He might just as well enjoy himself in Rome. He knew what select and brilliant circles his mother drew around her. Better for him to be the center of one of those than alone and solitary in England.

"Of course," said the countess, diplomatically, "I will not urge you, I leave it entirely to you. If you think what the fashion of the day calls your duties demand that you should return, do not let me detain you, even for one day."

"I have no particular duties," he said, half gloomily.

He would have liked his mother to have insisted on his going, to have been more imperative, but as she left it entirely to him, he thought her indifferent over the matter.

He was a true man. If she had pressed him to go, urged him, tried to persuade him, he would have gone back to England, and the tragedy of after years would never have happened. As it occurred to him that his mother simply gave the invitation out of politeness, and did not care whether he accepted or not, he decided on going. So when the festivities of Berlin were all ended, he wrote to Leone, saying that he was going to spend the winter with his parents in Rome; that if he could not spend it with her, it mattered little enough to him where is was; but that he was longing with all his heart for the thirtieth of June.


CHAPTER XXIV.


IN THE HANDS OF A CLEVER WOMAN.

"In Rome," said Lady Marion Erskine, to her cousin; "how strange it seems to be really here! Do you know that when I was a little girl and learned Roman history I always thought it a grand fable. I never believed such a place really existed. Rome is a link between the old world and the new."

"Yes," replied Lady Cambrey, "it is quite true, my dear."

She had no notion, even ever so vague, of what her beautiful young kinswoman meant.

Lady Cambrey was not given to the cultivation of ideas, but she was always most amiably disposed to please Lady Marion. It was something very delightful to be the chaperon of a beautiful young heiress like Lady Erskine, and she was always delighted to agree with Lady Marion's words, opinions, and ideas.

Lady Marion was submissive and gentle by nature. She was one of the class of women born to be ruled and not to rule. She could never govern, but she could obey. She could not command, but she could carry out the wishes of others to the last letter.

Lady Cambrey, from motives of her own, wanted her to go to Rome. She had managed it without the least trouble.

"Marion," she said, "have you decided where to spend the winter?"

"No," was the quiet reply, "I have not thought much about it, Aunt Jane; have you?"

The words were so sweetly and placidly spoken.

"Yes, I have thought a great deal about it. I hear that a great many very nice English people have gone to Rome. They say that there will be one of the nicest circles in Europe there."

"In Rome," said Lady Marion, musingly. "Do I know many of those who are going?"

"Yes, some of our own set. One of the great Roman princes, Dorio, has just married a beautiful English girl, so that for this year at least the English will be all the rage in Rome. I should like to go there. I knew some of the Dorio family, but not the one just married."

"Then, if you would like it, we will go there," said Lady Marion; "I shall be pleased if you are."

So without any more difficulty the first part of the programme was carried out, and Lady Marion Erskine, with her chaperon, Lady Jane Cambrey, settled in Rome for the winter. They took a beautifully furnished villa, called the Villa Borgazi, near to some famous gardens. Lady Cambrey took care that, while she reveled in Italian luxuries, no English comfort should be wanting--the Villa Borgazi soon had in it all the comforts of an English home.

She came home one morning, after many hours of shopping, with a look of some importance on her face.

"Marion," she said, "I have heard that the Lanswells are here. I am very pleased. I thought of calling this afternoon; if you are tired, I will go alone."

And from the tone of her voice, rather than her words, Lady Marion fancied that she would prefer to pay her visit alone.

"You remember the Countess of Lanswell; she was la grande dame par excellence in London last summer. She admired you very much, if you recollect."

"I remember her," said Lady Marion; then, with some interest, she added, "It was her son, Lord Chandos, who got himself into such difficulties, was it not?"

Lady Cambrey was slightly taken by surprise; her ward had always shown such a decided distaste for gossip of all kinds that she trusted she had never even heard of this little escapade. However, Lady Marion's question must be answered.

She shook her head gravely.

"It was not his fault, poor boy!" she said; "his mother has told me all about it. I am very sorry for him."

"Why does he deserve so much pity?" she asked.

And Lady Cambrey answered:

"He was but a boy at the time, and she, this person, a dairy-maid, I believe, took advantage of his generosity, and either persuaded him to marry her, or wrung from him some promise of marriage when he should be of age."

"I thought," said straightforward Lady Marion, "that he was married, and his parents had petitioned that the marriage be considered null and void as he was under age."

"I think, my dear," said the diplomatic aunt, "that it would be as well not to mention this. Two things are certain, if Lord Chandos had been properly married, his marriage could never have been set aside; the other is, that the countess can never endure the mention of her son's misfortune."

"Do you know Lord Chandos?" asked Lady Marion, after a time.

"Yes, I know him, and I consider him one of the most charming men I have ever met, a perfect cavalier and chivalrous gentleman."

"That is high praise," said Lady Marion, thoughtfully.

"I know of none higher," said her aunt, and then with her usual tact changed the subject; but more than once that day Lady Marion thought of the man who was a cavalier and a gentleman.

Meanwhile the time passed pleasantly for the countess and her son. They were staying at the grand palace of the Falconis--once the home of princes, but now let by the year to the highest bidder. Lady Lanswell took good care that her son should be well amused; every morning a delicious little sketch of the day's amusement was placed before him; the countess laid herself out to please him as man had never been pleased before.

The countess saw that he received letters from England continually. She was above all vulgar intrigue, or she might have destroyed more than one-half which came, without his seeing them. She would not do that; the war she carried into the enemy's camp was of the most refined and thorough-going kind. She would set aside a marriage on a mere quibble, but she would not destroy a letter. She had said, openly and defiantly to her son's face, that she felt sure he would not remarry Leone in June, but she would stoop to no vulgar way to prevent it.

It often happened that the countess herself opened the letter-bag. When she did so, and there was a letter from Leone, she always gave it to her son with a smile, in which there was just a shade of contempt.

"Another letter," she